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Policing is widely recognised as one of the most stressful occupations. Numerous studies have explored the ways in which stress impacts on the personal and professional lives of officers. Using this literature as context, the article explores the way in which representations of policing in film and TV have changed to reflect this issue, to the point where the predominant mode of representation is the dysfunctional officer broken by the job. Using bricolage as a research approach, three twenty-first-century examples are examined; Wallander from Sweden, The Wire from the US and Red Riding from the UK, raising questions about the dystopian pleasures of these media texts with a suggestion of further work to explore the relationship between representations and the reality of the stresses of policing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Criminal Justice System (CJS) has historically been a key site of social work intervention. Wacquant argues that the growth of social insecurity and the expansion of the penal state are endogenous features of the neo-liberal political project. The key premises of neo-liberalism have been accepted by parties of both the left and the right. This shift alongside an increase in inequality had led to increasing social anxiety and mistrust. One manifestation of these trends is a decline in the belief that the rehabilitation of offenders is a realisable goal of social and penal policy. The expansion of the penal state: the increasing numbers, poor conditions and the over-representation of minority groups mean that it should be a core social work concern. The paper outlines the ways, in which, risk and managerialism have side lined core social work values in the CJS. It concludes penal policy and conditions can only be reformed if the inherent dignity of offenders is rediscovered and placed at its centre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professor Loic Wacquant was born in Montpelier in 1960. He was educated in France before completing a Ph.D. in Chicago in 1994. He is currently Professor of Sociology at the University of California at Berkeley. His work is concerned with the impact of neoliberalism in the area of welfare and penal policy. Wacquant has published a number of highly influential books the most notable of which are Les Prisons de la misère (1999, translated in 20 languages; new and expanded English edition, Prisons of Poverty, 2009), Body and Soul: Ethnographic Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer (2000), Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality (2008) and Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity (2009). These works, along with the major papers listed in the bibliography, form the core of Wacquant's analysis of the impact of neoliberal welfare and penal policy. These papers consider three key areas: advanced marginality, race (ethno-racial domination) and the rise of the penal state. His significance as a commentator for social work, specifically, lies in his critical engagement with these three areas that have so shaped the development of modern welfare and penal policy. The article concludes that Wacquant's work provides a clear analytical framework for the study of the organisational and social contexts of contemporary practice. His work also calls for a more politically engaged social work practice—a form of practice that will move away from social work as a narrow bureaucratic activity dominated by risk management and return to core social work values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reform of the Mental Health Act in 2007 saw the introduction of Supervised Community Treatment Orders (CTOs) in England and Wales. It is argued that this marks a fundamental shift in the rights of those subject to mental health legislation. This paper will explore the developments in mental health policy in the 1980s and 1990s that form the backdrop to the introduction of CTOs. It uses Simon's Governing through crime (2007) as a basis to explore the developments in mental health policy that resulted in the final introduction of CTOs. The paper explores the paradox at the heart of mental health policy. This paradox being that while the protections and the rights of the mentally ill have increased in a formal legal sense, this has not resulted in the achievement of full citizenship that the idealism of the original proponent of the closure of the asylums envisaged. The policy of deinstitutionalisation was based on a series of progressive notions and explicit rights based approach to the treatment of citizens with mental health problems. However, the implication of this policy has not resulted in the end of stigma, marginalisation and discrimination. Many commentators would suggest that the asylums have now come to the community rather than the reverse. The mental health policy response to the failings of community care was one characterised by an increased managerialist culture with a focus on audit and risk. These events are discussed in terms of Cohen's (1972) notion of a `moral panic'. In addition, they are analysed as part of Hall and others' view of the crisis of legitimacy faced by Welfare States from the early l970s onwards. The eventual result was the introduction of CTOs. This marks a fundamental shift in the balance between individuals with mental health problems and the therapeutic state. It is argued that the fact that such a significant change has been introduced in the face of opposition from virtually all the key stakeholders in the area indicates that the 'mentally ill' and the 'mad' continue to be a marginalised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The publication of the Bradley review in the United Kingdom is a watershed in the development of policy regarding the way that the Criminal Justice System responds to individuals with mental health problems. It then goes on to explore one aspect of that response: the role of the Appropriate Adult under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (1984). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discovered 40 years ago, plant glutathione transferases (GSTs) now have a well-established role in determining herbicide metabolism and selectivity in crops and weeds. Within the GST superfamily, the numerous and plant-specific phi (F) and tau (U) classes are largely responsible for catalyzing glutathione-dependent reactions with xenobiotics, notably conjugation leading to detoxification and, more rarely, bioactivating isomerizations. In total, the crystal structures of 10 plant GSTs have been solved and a highly conserved N-terminal glutathione binding domain and structurally diverse C-terminal hydrophobic domain identified, along with key coordinating residues. Unlike drug-detoxifying mammalian GSTs, plant enzymes utlilize a catalytic serine in place of a tyrosine residue. Both GSTFs and GSTUs undergo changes in structure during catalysis indicative of an induced fit mechanism on substrate binding, with an understanding of plant GST structure/function allowing these proteins to be engineered for novel functions in detoxification and ligand recognition. Several major crops produce alternative thiols, with GSTUs shown to use homoglutathione in preference to glutathione, in herbicide detoxification reactions in soybeans. Similarly, hydroxymethylglutathione is used, in addition to glutathione in detoxifying the herbicide fenoxaprop in wheat. Following GST action, plants are able to rapidly process glutathione conjugates by at least two distinct pathways, with the available evidence suggesting these function in an organ- and species-specific manner. Roles for GSTs in endogenous metabolism are less well defined, with the enzymes linked to a diverse range of functions, including signaling, counteracting oxidative stress, and detoxifying and transporting secondary metabolites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The long stated aim of UK Government policy has been to divert mentally disordered offenders from the Criminal Justice system to services where their mental health needs can be adequately addressed. An examination of the rates of mental disorder amongst those appearing before the Courts and in the prison population shows that this policy is not achieving its stated aims. This article considers two elements of possible police and social work involvement to examine the cultural shifts that are required to make this policy more effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]